


Hot Chocolate

by evewithanapple



Category: Body (movie concept)
Genre: Chromatic Yuletide 2012, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 07:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't really . . . do Christmas." Or, the vagaries of spending the holidays with your bodyguard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot Chocolate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scissorphishe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scissorphishe/gifts).



> For then purposes of this story, the teacher's name is David and the bodyguard's name is Dom.
> 
> Dom's sweater looks like [this](http://i50.tinypic.com/mt5caa.jpg). And it is adorable.

Whenever David told his co-workers that Christmas was his favourite time of the year, he generally got one of two reactions. Either they nodded and said “yeah, I could use the break!” or the put him on the receiving end of a bug-eyed expression finer than any produced by Rodney Dangerfield and said “seriously? Seriously?”  
  
(Well, there was also Option Three: the ones who said “you celebrate Christmas?” But most of the other teachers at PS 157 had learned that doing so would only earn them a mild look and a “yes?” and so they’d stopped asking.)  
  
His co-workers’ incredulity aside, Christmas- especially the weeks leading up to the Christmas break- really were his favourite time of year. It was cheesy, sure, but it was also impossible not to be affected by the battered decorations that got dragged out of the basement, the first snowfall, the cookie-baking, and of course the kids’ excitement. That, he found, was generally what led the other teachers to approach the season with an air of “let’s just get this over with,” but David didn’t find the bevy of hyperactive five-year-olds in his care tiring at all. Okay, maybe a little tiring, but not in a bad way. After all, even if he was too old to believe in Santa, there was still nothing that beat the looks on his kids’ faces when they heard that booming “HO HO HO!” coming from the hallway, or got in line to sit on Santa’s knee. He’d happily endure a dozen shrieking headaches for that.  
  
His bodyguard, he suspected, would not feel the same way.  
  
“I am not dressing up like Santa,” Dom said flatly when David mentioned the party. “One, they’ll know it’s me. Two, it’s a security risk. Three, I’m not doing it.”  
  
“I wasn’t suggesting otherwise,” David said mildly. “We’ll have the same Santa we do every year, Mr. Clements. He’d be disappointed if anyone tried to take his place.”  
  
Dom eyed him suspiciously. “Then what do you need me for?”  
  
His bodyguard, David reflected, really needed to cut back on the whole “suspect everything” attitude. He’d be dead of a heart attack before he reached fourty if he didn’t. “I was only going to suggest that you wear something a bit less- well, that.” He gestured vaguely at Dom’s suit. “You know, more Christmassy? Red and green? Maybe with bells on it?”  
  
Okay, maybe he’d just added that last bit to see Dom’s reaction.  
  
It was worth it.  
  
The other man swelled up like an inflated balloon, and for a second, David was afraid that he’d actually broken him. But instead he just nodded gruffly. “I’ll see what I can do.”  
  
“Good!” David said brightly, clapping him on the shoulder. “And you know, we could always use another one of Santa’s elves.”  
  
Dom didn’t even try to respond to that one. To be fair, David hadn’t expected him to.  
  


* * * *

When David had said “red and green,” he’d expected Dom to turn up in the same suit with a slightly more colourful tie- maybe red socks, if he was feeling especially daring.  He definitely hadn’t expected him to turn up on the day of Santa’s visit wearing a giant knitted sweater with a cheerfully smiling Rudolph- complete with a pom-pom nose- emblazoned across the chest.

It was hideous.

It was also adorable.

“Glad to see you’ve embraced the spirit of the season!” he says cheerily, once he’s overcome his shock. Dom, surprisingly, does not scowl at this pronouncement, but that might be because the kids are clustered around him wanting to touch Rudolph’s nose, and you’d have to be a giant Grinch to scowl with that going on. Dom, contrary to David’s sarcastic suppositions, was not a Grinch, and so he gamely let them crown him with a pair of reindeer antlers they found in the costume box and pet the reindeer sweater, and even whinnied dutifully when "Santa" joyfully declared that he'd found Rudolph after all. The kids- who'd taken a liking to Dom from the moment he'd walked into the classroom for reasons David chalked up to reverse psychology- were overjoyed, and several threw themselves squealing into his arms. David would have been lying if he said his heart didn't melt a little when Dom gave each of them a squeeze before putting them down. And he could have sworn he saw Dom smile a little to himself when the parents showed up to collect their kids and several started babbling excitedly about Mr. Dominic's double life as Santa's reindeer.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Navin!" Chelsea called as her mother lead her out of the classroom. "And happy New Year!"  
David smiled and waved back. "You too, Chelsea."

With the kids gone, he took a step back and surveyed the state of the classroom. To call it a disaster area wasn't quite accurate- he did get the kids to tidy up their workspaces before they left- but there were crumbs from the Christmas cookies strewn across the carpet, battered decorations hanging crazily from the ceiling, and paint splattered across several desks. This was generally the portion of the holiday where his co-workers started to flee, and even David had to admit that he wasn't entirely looking forward to wiping everything up. Still, he couldn't very well go home and leave the cleaning staff to postpone their holidays scrubbing up his mess.

"I can help clean," said a voice from behind him. "If you want."

David turned around. Dom was still dressed in his Rudolph sweater, which had gotten somewhat battered during the day- Rudolph's nose looked dangerously close to falling off- but his face was impassive, arms crossed.

David smiled gratefully. "I'd really appreciate it."

Dom shrugged. "I don't leave until you do."

As he bent to pick up one of the trampled decorations, a thought occured to David. "Are you not going home for Christmas? You don't want to miss out on dinner with the family because you're keeping an eye on me."

"I don't go home for Christmas." Dom said flatly. "I have a job to do."

"Well yeah, but-"

"A job." His tone left no room for argument. David sighed. It appeared that the Christmas cheer- if that was what had improved Dom's mood- was already leaking away.

"Well, I'm afraid I won't be going anywhere. Christmas is just at my apartment this year, and I don't have any guests coming over." Normally his mom and sister were both on the guest list, but Mom was on vacation in Costa Rica- the tickets had been his and Marie's gift to her last year- and Marie was working holiday hours at the hospital and couldn't get away. Nobody at the apartment but us chickens, if by "us chickens" you meant "a solitary kindergarden teacher and his exceptionally crabby bodyguard." God bless us, everyone, David thought ironically.

"That's fine by me." Of course it was. David considered asking Dom if he was sure if he didn't want the time off, but he figured it was more or less pointless. The job came first. Hell, the job probably was his family; he certainly seemed to love it as much as he would a parent or a sibling or a pet.

David sighed again. "Well, I hope you like turkey."

* * * *

That night, after getting changed into his Christmas PJs (white with candy canes printed all over them- a gag gift from Marie that he wore every year from December twentieth to the thirty-first) and brewing a whole pot of hot chocolate, David settled down in front of the TV, remote in hard. Another holiday tradition- every day leading up to Christmas, he sat down to watch a holiday movie. Tonight it was "A Christmas Carol," maybe followed by "Mrs. Sants Claus," if he could stay awake long enough. He didn't have a fireplace, but he'd lit candles on the coffee table, and with the whole apartment infused with the smell of hot chocolate, he felt pretty good about things as he put the DVD in and pressed play.

Dom was parked out on the fire escape, over David's objections. He'd brought an infrared camera with him, along with a black coat and hat, and was sitting there staring through his telescope- David's telescope, not Dom's; he thought his bodyguard might have fallen in love with it at first sight- at the street below, as if armed terrorists were going to come bursting through the door at any moment. He had been (David suspected) peering through open windows before David told him he was absolutely forbidden from spying on the neighbours; the last thing he needed was Mrs. Vergoossen banging on his door to warn him about the Peeping Tom hiding on the fire escape. That, and he wouldn't put it past her to call the police, and that would just get really awkward, really fast. Dom, upon being told all this, had been an admittedly good sport about it; he'd considered, nodded, and turned the telescope towards the street below. Still weird, but at least he wasn't going to catch any of the neighbours in their underwear.

As the opening credits scrolled, David glanced over at the window. It had started snowing earlier, and while Dom was bundled into a coat that might or might not have been designed by the military, it still seemed like a cold, lonely way to spend the evening. Especially when the whole reason he was here was sitting on a couch, next to a heater, wearing PJs and watching singing puppets on TV. Something about the whole thing seemed out of whack. Okay, so the guy was a serious grump, but that didn't mean he deserved to be left out in the cold.

David made a decision. Standing up, he shuffled over to the kitchenette and grabbed another mug from the cupboard. Pouring it full of hot chocolate, he set it down on a plate and surrounded it with gingerbread cookies and a candy cane. As an afterthought, he tossed a pair of marshmallows on top- he didn't know if Dom liked them- and smiled with satisfaction before grabbing his coat and boots from the closet and heading to the window.

He probably should have remembered before trying to open the window that it stuck. Failing that, he probably should have set the plate down before applying his elbow to the window to try and shove it open. As it was, he toppled forward as the window finally budged, and Dom- who, David suspected, had probably been waiting for something interesting to happen- lunged for him like they were in a war zone and he was the only thing standing between them and a nuclear landmine.

"It's fine," David reassured him, as Dom steadied him with a hand. The guy had big hands- not all that surprising for a secret agent, but he'd somehow never noticed before. "All I did was spill some of the hot chocolate." Demonstrating, he licked the spill off his hand. It wasn't even hot enough to burn.

Dom eyed him warily, settling back onto his perch. "Hot chocolate?"

"For you, actually." David held out the mug. "I figured you might want something to snack on." While Dom nodded in what David assumed was gratitude, David settled himself down on the bench next to him. "So, caught any terrorists yet?"

Dom snorted. David was surprised; he hadn't expected that much of a sense of humour. "No, no terrorists. Your neighbours need to clean up after their dog, though."

"Their-" David followed Dom's gaze. "Oh yeah, that's Laddie. They do okay cleaning up during the summer, but they just shovel the snow over it over the winter. Makes for an interesting cleanup when the snow melts."

Dom just grunted again. David took a cookie from the plate and munched, watching the snow drift past. A few of the neighbours had left their blinds up, and he could see Christmas tree lights gleaming through the windows. He had a tree in his own apartment- a plastic one, to be sure (he was allergic to cedar) and getting more and more bedraggled as the years went on, but it went up without fail every December. He wondered if Dom had a tree in his apartment, or if he had an apartment, or if he just travelled from motel to motel accompanied by a bag of spyware and black clothing. He wondered if there was some kind of protocol for getting your bodyguard a Christmas present.

So he asked. "Is there anything you want for Christmas?"

Dom turned to look at him. It wasn't a . . . friendly look, exactly, but it wasn't unfriendly either. It was more like . . . abject confusion. "For . . . what?"

"Christmas," David said patiently. Then, unable to resist the urge to tease a bit, he added "Season of joy and togetherness? Generally celebrated around the winter solstice? Reason you showed up to my class dressed as Rudolph today?"

"I know what Christmas is." The familiar look of annoyance was back. "I don't . . . need anything. You don't need to get me presents for doing my job. You didn't ask to have me over."

Stung, David jerked his head in an approximation of a nod. "Okay then,"

Dom's face softened slightly. "But thank you for asking. I just don't really- do Christmas."

"Makes sense," David allowed. Travelling around doing vaguely spy-type stuff probably didn't leave much time for making friends and keeping in touch with family. Come to think of it, he'd been kind of stupid to bring it up at all. Who talked holidays with their bodyguards? Let alone their supremely grouchy, solitary, I-don't-have-friends-I-Have-a-job bodyguard. Of all the stupid ideas . . .

Still, he thought as he watched Dom gaze through the telescope, he wanted to do something to say he appreciated Dom's hanging around. Job or no.  Maybe he could get him a card or a packet of candy canes, or . . .

His eyes fall back on the mug he'd brought out- an old gift from one of his co-workers, with a stencil of Sherlock Holmes and an magnifying glass on the side. Dom did seem to love that telescope. He wasn't buying an expensive piece of machinery for him, obviously, but for a tiny gag gift . . . ? He grinned. Dom must have noticed somehow, too, because he glanced up from the telescope. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," David said with a casual shrug for emphasis. Dom seemed to buy it, because he shrugged as well, and went back to looking through the telescope. David smiled and settled back in his seat, still holding the mug of hot chocolate, muted music from the TV playing through the window. God bless us everyone, indeed.


End file.
